Initial Ideas (Crazy Eights)

After looking at the project brief of the three themes (Primitivism, pop art, industrial) we were tasked with generating ideas based on our chosen theme. I chose primitivism as my theme as I think it gives me a more creative route and the theme is a bit broader than the rest. I started with creating a mind map

I wrote down all the things I associated with the theme such as nature, history, land and so on. This helped me not to think too much on the specifics and to see how many different sections of primitivism I could choose from when creating the final project.

After that we did a task called 'Crazy Eights' which required us to draw our ideas and develop them within a set time frame as it was supposed to be just a quick sketch of what we were thinking about regarding the project at the time. We folded our paper to get eight different sections for our sketches 

 

 

I initially thought of African huts so I drew that first then i started to develop on that idea. I thought about including texture and that's when I got the idea of including Ankara patterns. Ankara is a type of cultural clothing worn in West Africa, mainly Nigeria and it's known for its variety of vibrant patterns

 Ankara Fabric

There are various patterns associated with it so I have a broad range to choose from if I decide to keep this idea. I continued to try different versions of huts and how to implement the fabric designs in them. After that I decided to also look at nature and thought of doing something with a flower. I settled on the Protea flower which is native to South Africa as it is mostly grown there and also their national flower. So I continued to draw with the flower as my main focus while also trying to include other design factors to it

 

Protea Flower

After the Crazy Eights task I tried to evolve my idea with the flower. I started by drawing different ideas for the roof of the building based on the flower. I tried different variations of the flower from when it's open to when it's closed and also the different stages of development of the flower.

When I finished with that, I thought that instead of making just the roof based on the flower that I could just base the whole building on it. So I did more drawings of a whole building inspired by the Protea flower.

I ended up discussing with Naomi and she liked the idea of the flower and the ankara patterns, she also told me to look up Biomimicry in architectural designs. I still have to think of how I will include the patterns into the design of the building and whether it will work well together or not. 

When doing research on Biomimicry Architecture there are some designs which I felt inspired by and also related to the idea I have. They include;

 

Flor De Venzuela (2008) by José Fructoso Vivas

 

 Flor De Venezuela (2008) by José Fructoso Vivas

 

The Lotus Building (2013) by Studio505  

 

For the function of my building I have thought of a few ideas such as a library, concert hall, church or villa but I have not narrowed down the purpose of the building. In terms of location I thought South Africa would be the best option as the Protea flower is their national flower but the implementation of Ankara patterns may not work as it is a West African design. 

These are just my initial ideas which are all subject to change as I continue to work on it and do more research